


The Original Mark

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Healing, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Angel Healing Anyway, Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel's Handprint, Dean Has Nightmares, Healing, Inspired by 10x17, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, POV Sam Winchester, Sam is a Good Brother, Sharing a Bed, Spoilers, Takes Place After s11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2016-08-03
Packaged: 2018-07-29 03:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7669213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The nightmares have been frequent since… well, since Dean could crawl into Sam’s crib. But they’ve been more uncontrollable lately. Luckily, they mainly happen in the Bunker. If Dean wails the way he does in a dingy motel room, the 5-0 would be on them quicker than flies to shit—or, in simpler terms, hunters to a rotting corpse. He can be physically violent too. But they say not to wake a heavy sleeper, so Sam usually grabs his left bicep where Castiel’s handprint was and squeezes until Dean’s breathing evens out. </p><p>Sam’s always wondered why that did the trick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Original Mark

 

The Bunker walls are thin.

You’d think with every sigil and safety pin that keeps the place standing, the Men of Letters would have invested in stronger plaster. Instead, Sam’s sliding out of bed easier than egg whites on an oil-slick pan and flying down the corridor. Another violent outburst pierces through the veil of Sam’s slumber. His eyes, laden with exhaustion from research for the case in Atlanta and plain grogginess, adjust to the sight before him.

They say you are what you eat, but Dean is what he drinks. Dean is a tall Heineken. His emotions are the froth. The man can be shaken a thousand times, so long as his cap's sealed tight. But the minute someone twists it, the minute his vulnerability lays bare, he erupts like Mount Vesuvius.

Except, when Mount Vesuvius erupts, there's room for reparations.

The nightmares have been frequent since… well, since Dean could crawl into Sam’s crib. But they’ve been more uncontrollable lately. Luckily, they mainly happen in the Bunker. If Dean wails the way he does in a dingy motel room, the 5-0 would be on them quicker than flies to shit—or, in simpler terms, hunters to a rotting corpse. He can be physically violent too. But they say not to wake a heavy sleeper, so Sam usually grabs his left bicep where Castiel’s handprint was and squeezes until Dean’s breathing evens out.

Sam’s always wondered why that did the trick. 

A bright blue light shines underneath the sliver between Dean’s door and the floor, and he can hear the faint shrill-like whistle of Enochian. _Cas?_ He noses his gun through the entryway.

Sure enough, Sam can see Dean writhing under his blankets like a man in a strait jacket, and Cas looming over him from the nightstand. The angel has his hand Dean’s forehead, palm outspread as light trickles onto Dean. His eyes are squinted, but not his usual Cas way. It’s more of an intense concentration. Whatever he’s doing must work too, even a little, because Dean’s knotted body slips a little further into his wrinkled sheets.

Sam lowers his gun and fights against the urge to respire. Dean won’t hear him in the nadir of his nightmare, but Cas might. He leaves the door as is and slips down the hall.

Dean’s _finally_ sleeping.

***

Whatever mojo Cas is spiking Dean’s mind with doesn’t hold for long.

The next couple times he screams, Sam’s witness to not only Dean’s subconscious pitted against him, but the face of a man— _angel;_ Sam forgets Cas isn’t human sometimes—whose heart is clearly breaking.

Sam thinks, in times like these, if Cas had a soul, it probably wouldn’t be better off than his. It might even be worse. People think Sam’s the one that carries the torch over Dean’s head, but they haven’t seen Cas. Cas has literally scraped Heaven and Hell for Dean. He’s turned his back against his own flesh and blood to service Dean. He’s fought wars in Dean’s name. And more recently, he let Lucifer inside him to take down the one monster that weakened Dean. Cas’s arm must be _aching._

Just like now. Cas has his hand over Dean’s head again, blue light emanating from his palm. Dean continues to thrash with small grunts that, like lightening arresting a small town, get louder and clearer with each exhale.

Cas swivels his head in a panic when his eyes land on Sam through the crack in the doorway. Sam doesn’t realize he’s glued to the floor before he moves to Dean.

“Dean, Dean… hey, it’s me. It’s me.” Sam tries with no success to position his hand over his bicep again. When he manages to grab ahold of him, Dean lashes out like a newly wetted cat. Sam pushes his hair back, thinking. Then he whips his head to Cas. “You have to do it.”

Cas stares at him, wide-eyed. “Do what?”

“Put your hand where the handprint used to be.”

“Sam, I don’t—”

“Just do it, Cas!”

Cas’s moves past Sam and onto the bed to straddle Dean. Then his hand flies to Dean’s shoulder, slipping under the fabric for skin-on-skin contact. At first, Dean’s erratic state doesn’t change, then his body freezes and his eyes shoot open and stare up at Cas—or at least they think, because a second later, he falls back onto the bed like a wilting flower. He almost instinctively leans into Cas’s palm, then he’s snoring.

Cas spends a whole minute watching over him before gingerly slipping his hand out from underneath Dean.

Sam sighs and makes himself comfortable on the other side of Dean’s bed that night.

***

“Do you remember being Emmanuel?”

Some of Sam’s lukewarm coffee splashes on his upper lip and dribbles down his chest, but he doesn’t recoil. Having a questionable brown stain down the front of his workout tank top is the least of his worries when his brother poses a question like that. Cas hardly brings up his past. When he does, it’s usually to prove a point. Emmanuel is probably one of the _better_ parts of his past, Sam thinks. No memories of Dean or Sam or Heaven or Crowley or Leviathan or Naomi—a clean slate.

Cas turns just slightly from the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he made himself. Cas isn’t human anymore, but he says he likes the feel of the bread underneath his fingers. “What?”

“You know, Emmanuel,” Dean repeats, “the happily married hippie healer, the guy who wore your face.”

“Dean, I know who you’re referring to, it’s just… why do you ask?”

Dean shrugs, though Sam doesn’t have to be sitting next to him to see the heaviness in his shoulders. “Just wondering.”

***

The Bunker’s eerily quiet when Sam wakes up around three in the morning. He’s used to waking up because of Dean’s body clock, which is alright. He’s not an angsty twenty-two-year-old anymore; he can’t absorb as much sleep. Besides, while he’s up, he may as well check on his brother.

He pads down the hallway, the slap of his bare feet against the tile a gentle reminder of this place they call home. To say he and Dean have been through a lot would be an understatement. Never are they ungrateful for the experiences, though. They’ve met a lot of good people, lost a few too, and saw almost every attraction, from the largest ball of twine in their home state to the Island of Dolls in Mexico. (Which they weren’t even _supposed_ to see. Thanks to Dean’s maptose intolerance, Sam had a few of his own nightmares that night.)

When Sam approaches the door, he isn’t met by the sound of Enochian or Dean’s agony. For once, there’s _no_ sound. Just breathing.

Through the crack, he can see Dean passed out on his right side with a trenchcoated hand on his left bicep.

 

Sam smiles, thinking maybe, just maybe, if Cas should ever fall again, he might not be as helpless as he thinks.

 

 


End file.
